


Lighters

by shingo_the_pest



Category: Katekyou Hitman Reborn!
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-18
Updated: 2014-02-18
Packaged: 2018-01-12 21:55:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1201996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shingo_the_pest/pseuds/shingo_the_pest
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gokudera Hayato learns, and then he doesn’t learn. Gokudera at age eleven, fifteen, and twenty-five.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lighters

**Author's Note:**

> This is more like an exceptionally long drabble, than a structured story. ^^;;;;; Unbetaed. Originally posted on my [LJ](http://shingo-the-pest.livejournal.com/97225.html). 

When Gokudera was eleven he lost his lighter in the middle of a fight. It went flying when a slightly older, well muscled thug slapped Gokudera nose first into a brick wall.

The cocky kid had gone into another family's territory looking for a fight. He didn’t know just how inexperienced he was, and after weeks of practicing (mostly on paper, with numbers) he had a lot of tricks he wanted to try. And he WAS getting pretty sure of his aim with the dynamite, but if his fifteen-year-old self looked back on the incident, the right hand man of Vongola Decimo would have admitted (to himself if not to anyone else) that his speed and reflexes as an eleven-year-old were piss poor. No where near what's needed to fight successfully.

But young Gokudera didn't know that yet, and he had come into the fight very sure of himself, starting it by knocking the group of gangsters off their feet with an explosion. But it had quickly gone downhill when they caught him by the scuff. They knocked him around, kicked him in the ribs, beat him until he saw stars, and undoubtedly had a concussion. He would have fallen unconscious in the alley if a certain womanizing doctor hadn't shown up (Shamal was nearby purely by coincidence). Dr. Shamal sent mosquitoes after the thugs, paralyzing them, then theatrically lit up two sticks of dynamite with his cigarette and expertly took out both alley walls, bricks smothering the small pack of delinquents.  
   
And so lessons were learned.  
   
Stubborn as he is, Gokudera started doing several things after this incident.

He started smoking. After Shamal’s stunt lighting the dynamite with a cigarette, it was just too cool to not copy. Dr. Shamal even encouraged it, though the Gokudera family tried to stop the boy, with no success.

Another was how to make the explosions faster. He began cutting the wicks on his dynamite, making them shorter. And a year later he would get even more creative, varying the wick lengths, so that he could time quick, medium, and delayed explosions.

He learned how to fight with a knife. He started carrying them to cut the wicks, but they were very practical when combatants got too close. If he had been better with a knife, he could have taken out that group of thugs when the combat got up close and personal. And knives were just plain cool. Skulls and roses totally fit his style.

And lastly, he learned to keep many, many lighters on his person. There's one in a shoe, one in each and every pocket, one under a bracelet, even one snug against his right hip, skin close under tightie whities. He also scattered lighters and matches around his room, and throughout the mansion.

Now that he's in Japan, he's hidden lighters around his apartment, throughout the school (Hibari wasn't happy about that, but he actually hasn't found all of them yet) and most importantly, in the Tenth's house. Tsuna may not know it, but he's actually got a lighter underneath his mattress, never mind the ones in the kitchen, living room, and bathrooms. Gokudera encouraged the Tenth to hid one on his person, but that didn't go well, considering Tsuna wears boxers.  
   
 **Ten Years Later**  
   
"You don't attend Namimori Junior High School anymore," Hibari stated.

"No, I don't," Gokudera answered, nonplussed.

"Then you have no reason to have this on the property," Hibari held up a plastic back with an old metal lighter in it. "I found this behind a loose tile, in the sixth stall, in the second floor girl's bathroom."

"Ah."

"I told you to deSIST hiding things on school property," the adult Hibari was composed, but his fifteen-year-old self would have been hissing.

Fifteen-year-old Gokudera would have sneered and said, "I can put what I want to where I want you hyper-sensitive control freak," but his mature adult self just nodded in polite acquiesce and took the plastic bag.

A day later, back in Italy, he wondered if there might be a way to sneak the old lighter into Hibari’s shrine.

He dialed his cell.

“Cavallone. Yes, it’s Gokudera. Everything’s good. Actually Juudaime has a little favor to ask. The baseball idiot accidently took something of Hibari’s. Exactly. Just a little trinket. But it would be nice to get it back there without Hibari noticing. Yeah. Later this week? Yeah, it goes in one of the tatami rooms. Eh? The one that Hibari spends the most time in. Yeah, uh huh, that would be great. I’ll send it to you.”

**Author's Note:**

> It's really not a good idea to harass Hibari, but hey, he’s fooling Dino into doing the dirty work. ^^


End file.
